"Bloom? Like a flower?" She asked quizzically, one eyebrow raised at the unorthodox word choice.53Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXEeFbGWiK9
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Bloom can be used as an intransitive verb meaning to bear a flower or flowers and alternatively as meaning to appear or come into being suddenly.53Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXauZ6GcJU8
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In Empyrea, bloom now had a new, sinister undertone. Flowers blooming would normally evoke images of spring or rebirth. Not anymore.53Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcPXb8H6GS8
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It had changed when the Spring of the eighty-seventh year of Hope*, Aiko Petal - Master Adept of Floriculture, Floriography, and Botany - had been urgently summoned by Meritocrat Mylo of Artè after an abhorrent discovery: The BCU had kindly left the Aquilorians a...gift.53Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡctBmBAq04W
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*The Era of Hope was the sixth age of Empyrea.*53Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡi0kbzhlDQ3
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The Meritocrats of Æno, Academi, Adepto, Adhoma, Alerie, Azuri, Divitiae, Merita, Mezaik, Vorde, and Wyrai (every city in the Southeast of Empyrea apart from Artè large enough to be represented on the Meritocratic Council) had all been found dead with flowers growing in their lungs. The cause of death had been determined by a postmortem examination53Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcm7C9XInG7
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to be a mix of heart failure - caused by a cardiac glycoside called Convallatoxin - and suffocation.53Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwgHVSffwb3
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The culprit was a woodland flowering plant with sweetly scented, pendent, bell-shaped white flowers borne in sprays in spring that were native to Umbracrest and some parts of Northern Cerulea. Lily of the Valley or Convallaria majalis.53Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcW9XVX1feS
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"Why have I been called here, Meritocrat Mylo?" The Master Adept asked innocently. It was a reasonable question, Floriography students weren't taken particularly seriously even by the Academy of the Adept. The Adeptus Floricultural had supposedly been mentally feeble, something that was most likely not true.53Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOyXALpEiuV
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"To answer the only question that ever matters...why." He replied mysteriously.53Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBeyNbLAesO
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"Do you mean why they did this? That's easy: the BCU wanted to paralyse the Aquilorian regional government." She responded quietly, staring with wide eyes at the agonised corpses of the Meritocrats in shock.53Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdszYRRkpWE
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"I meant why they did it like this...what do these flowers mean?"53Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfLuifUeYeC
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Airko Petal had studied the art of floriography - communication with flowers - and was a leading expert in the symbolism behind them.53Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡooVM5iVuur
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"What it might have meant from anyone else," She mused, " Is sweetness, humility, purity; returning happiness." She paused. When she spoke again her face had darkened, "What this means is that we are being mocked; there is nothing sweet about the immense pain Chairman Hessen has caused just to send Aquiloria a snide message. Our best and brightest, all dead from flowers..." She lamented, overwhelmed by the senseless slaughter.53Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiTipovV35L
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"First Chancellor Nazarene was found dead and now this," Mylo whimpered quietly, suppressed rage seeping into his words and making them wobble, "It can't go unpunished."53Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2kJ4TFgc0s
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"Aquiloria won't be forgetting Operations Bloom and Chancellor anytime soon," Petal assured him.53Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6MLno4lDPR
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Although, she wasn't sure she believed it herself.
Penana
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